Husband doesn't like my weekend away

Every year my extended family goes on a weekend camping trip. Every year my husband plays the guilt trip because I want to go. Because he chooses not to go my daughters and I go and sleep in a tent. He finds this ridiculous because we have a 5th wheel camper and why would we want to sleep in a tent. This year his biggest gripe is that my extended family had not bothered to come to camp at the campground we have our permanent site at even though they have said they will. He feels it is a slap in the face to him if I chose to go. That I am being selfish. I just want my daughters to have the weekend with their cousins. Am I being insensitive to him?

He's expressing a deep down fear that this new pack he's created with/for you is still overly getting rejected in favour of your old one. Look at what he's saying underneath, using this all-singing, all-dancing caravan as his medium: Why on earth do you act like you still need them given that I can give you all that you need so much better they they can or ever could? He might appear to the naked eye to be unreasonable, but [1] it's an annual event (reinforcing the message he perceives), [2] they did promise, and [3] I'm betting there are more regular, extended-family get-togethers than this one; correct? Plus, as he sees it, your family is repeatedly sending a message to say, 'We do not respect your offshoot pack. THIS is the only pack that matters. This woman is ours, not yours and never will be. So, no, the mountain does NOT ever come to mere Mohammed. You slot into OUR lives, boy-o, not the other way around. Know your place.'. Yup, at this point I'd say I'd be effed off, too. And, yes, it seems you are being insensitive to him. Because look - you could quite easily vote your disapproval at their lack of [scuse pun] accommodation of and regard for your new life as an independent adult in your own right, just the once, USING YOUR FEET as well as your mouth. One firm instance of you saying and *doing*, 'We [WE, note!] would prefer you to take your promised turn at allowing us to play host and venue this year', should suffice if all your rellies are doing is innocently failing to use their noddles in considering other people's wishes and feelings, including a need to be needed and taken seriously like they COUNT in the packus maximus as a valued member. If they won't acquiesce, however, then their game is up, meaning, you then follow through by telling them you feel duty-bound to decline their kind offer (because your husband's happiness comes first). Meanwhile, you explain to your daughters how sacrifices getting made are part and parcel of self-assertiveness, in this case where concerns you supporting their father's feelings about getting treated, by his standards, as an extended-family nobody. If your daughters care about his self-esteem they should get right behind you. And they'll have learned an important life lesson: the indians being happy relies first and foremost on the chiefs being happy. HOWEVER, saying all of that, let's just check he is indeed being reasonable, shall we? Are you expected to join in regularly with HIS extended family, including whereby YOU have to slot in? Or, when you do, are they more accommodating towards you and your wishes? And whose rellies get socialised with the most?

PS: Of course, if this year's trip's organisation/destination is already set in stone thus too late to alter, you simply get a very firm GROUP promise that next year they play Mohammed to your mountain. PPS: In which case, if you want to be extra-clever, you drop your kids with their cousins/rellies and enjoy a romantic break, just you and hubster, in the all-singing-all-dancing caravan(, you lucky LUCKY bicz, LOL).

There are very few get togethers that we participate in anymore because of his uncooperation. It is strictly...X mas, birthdays and graduations. He has no contact with his family due to circumstances not in his control.

Why did they back out of the agreement that they would stay at your camp site? Does he get along with your extended family? It doesn't sound like he feels welcome to go. And there is a big difference between some one SAYING you can go and ACTUALLY feeling welcome to go.

I do not know why they back out, it just did not happen. He is welcome to come but no he does not care for my family. They have not done any thing in particular to make him feel this way. My brothers are just very close and even I feel like an outsider at times. It is just the way it had always been. They are only 18 months apart and I am the oldest and only girl. It is what it is.

"They have not done any thing in particular to make him feel this way. My brothers are just very close and even I feel like an outsider at times. It is just the way it had always been. They are only 18 months apart and I am the oldest and only girl. It is what it is." THERE IT IS! I know you say there aren't that many occasions these days, but given a choice between doing something as special/infrequent as a holiday-ette with your old family versus being cosy with your new family, why on earth would you prefer the former (and acquiescing only as far as attempting to combine BOTH) to tightening your own little family's bonds...PARTICULARLY if your brothers give you a sense of exclusion, anyway? That would be a perfectly reasonable and future-thinking attitude on the part of someone who didn't have some deeper, hidden, issue- or fear-stemming drive in play. But you do. And why wouldn't you, given what you've just described. Is it time, do you think, for you to let go of your past-habitual attempts to, as you see it, gain your sibling's acceptance and approval and satisfy a need to prove you're equally worthy despite "only a girl", using yours and their kids' as your access in, for the sake of giving someone who obviously DOES approve and accept you this type of effort and regard? If you allow this blinkering to continue you could end up one day with no close sibling relationship, still, AND your spousal closeness in tatters. And I'm not surprised that a man who loves and feels protective over you would 'dislike' a trio of men who marginalise, through, I'm guessing, no fault of her own, his raison d'etre-on-legs. It's called knowing which side your bread is buttered on, JMCUTS. So this IS a loyalty issue. Your husband is trying to show loyalty TOWARDS YOU.

Let me put it another way just to make sure... Despite he can't verbally articulate his emotional attitude and actions and reasons behind them, it appears he's trying to stick up for you because YOU WON'T. He obviously loves you a great deal to feel so protective over your sense of self-price-tag, even to the extent of trying to communicate it (and compensate you for this marginalisation) with that amazing, expensive, trailer-type winnebago. What a diamond. So it seems I was right when I said, you luckybicz. :-)

Hey, So i was reading your situation & also the comments & I've noticed that you mentioned something that caught my eye.. you quoted: "He has no contact with his family due to circumstances not in his control." I feel the relationship he has with his family reflects on how he's been feeling with you & yours. Like I feel if he doesnt have that connection with his family, why should you with yours? yous are a family and yous can do your own thing as a family. And I guess what makes his problem even worse was when your family said they'll use his camping grounds to which they didn't follow suit to what they said. I feel if your family had shown a sign of appreciation in that way, his definition of "FAMILY" wouldn't mean disappointment to him... If you want to change how he's been feeling about the yearly trip, you need to bring his side together & show them what family is about, reconnect everybody. then come by your family time, he'll be happily enough to join in & not purposely exclude himself